Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything (6 page)

“I could come down to Brighton Beach,” I say. “We could cart them over to the aquarium.”

“Oh. Um. Not with all three. It's too crazy. I'm gonna keep them at home or maybe just the playground.” And she's right. With the three of them, we'd be outnumbered.

“What about tomorrow night?” I sound plaintive. “We could go to the movies. Or you could come sleep over. My folks are out of town.”

“I can't. My mom is leaving for work at seven on Sunday.”

Is she mad at me? She doesn't
seem
mad at me. But she's blowing me off.

I haven't even told her yet. There's never a good time to say to someone, “Hey, my parents are getting a divorce.” And Katya's so into her family. The Belovs are family, family all the time.

The boys' locker room door swings open, and the Art Rats swarm into the hall. Titus, Shane, Adrian, Malachy and Brat. They're damp from the showers, geared up for the weekend. As they move past us, Shane bangs a locker hard, just to make noise, and I jump.

Why do boys do stuff like that?

“Friday, Friday, Friday!” Brat yells, his voice echoing down the hallway.

Adrian slams Brat in the back with a basketball, to shut him up, and Brat doubles over, his hands on his knees.

“I'm getting you for that!” cries Brat, turning red.

“Get me, get me, get me.” Adrian spreads his arms wide.

“Shut up, losers.” Titus.

“Didn't you see him hit me?”

“Just a tap, Tinker Bell,” says Adrian. “Not hard.”

Brat mutters to himself, and Malachy stops next to us, looking up and down in an exaggerated appraisal. “Girls, girls, girls!” Like he's pretending to be a pimp. “Ready for the weekend?”

“Ready as ever,” says Katya.

Hell. Did someone just pinch my butt?

Someone did
.

Shane. He's right behind me, laughing.

Why would he pinch my butt?

Why?

He's got a girlfriend. He barely even talks to me.

“Keep looking fine,” says Malachy—then drops his pimp attitude in a fit of giggles. And then they are off down the hall, making noise about pizza and some movie they're going to catch at four o'clock.

“Hell,” I mutter to Katya, digging around to find my subway pass in the crazy mess that is my backpack. “I do
not
understand what they are up to.”

“Don't waste your energy,” says Katya.

“Aren't they like alien beings?”

Katya puts on some lip gloss. “You think about them too much.”

“What else is there to think about?”

“Drawing. Art. Literature. Politics. What to buy at the grocery store.”

“Shane pinched my booty just now, did you catch that?”

Katya shakes her head. “What a schmuck.”

“Do you think it meant something?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe he was asserting his male dominance,” she concedes, “but it doesn't mean he has leftover feelings for you.”

“What male dominance?”

“He's marking territory, like a dog,” explains Katya. “Saying, see this butt? I can pinch it if I want. Gretchen won't do anything.”

Now I feel like a half-wit, because I was actually flattered that Shane even noticed my booty enough to tempt his fingers in that direction. “Okay,” I say. “But I don't think Shane is usually the booty-pinching type. He never pinched it before. Did he ever pinch yours?”

“I doubt it.”

“Come on, Katya. Wouldn't you remember if Shane pinched your booty?”

“Okay, he never pinched it,” she admits. “But I still don't think it means anything. He was male dominating. Or maybe flirting.”

“But why is he flirting with me?”

“It's not the kind of flirting you want, anyway. Someone grabbing you from behind when he thinks he can cop a feel.”

“Do you think he wants to be friends again?”

“No.”

“Then is he manipulating me?”

“You think about it too much.”

“How can there be flirting that doesn't mean anything?” I push.

“There just is.” We're outside the school now, heading toward the subway. Katya lights a cigarette.

“Like you and Malachy?” I ask, feeling annoyed about the smoke and the no weekend plans.

“I wasn't flirting with Malachy.”

I know I'm being a pain—but I can't help it.

My dad is a cheating, disappearing jerk

and I love him like crazy;

Shane is a cold-fish-sometimes-flirty ex, and I can barely talk when he's in the room;

Titus is a sensitive guy one minute and sidekick to booty master Adrian the next.

If I can't figure out how to deal with the opposite sex, I'm going to lose my mind.

“Guys suck,” I say to Katya. “Then they grow up to be men, and the men suck too.”

“So forget them.”

“Ha. That's like Spider-Man forgetting he's got Venom following him up a building.”

Silence.

“Know what I wish?” I say. We are standing outside the subway now, before getting on our different trains.

“Hm.” She seems distracted. “That you had a life?”

“Katya!”

“Okay. That Titus liked you.”

“Besides that. Guess.”

“Money? Beauty?”

“Besides those.”

“Peace?”

“Besides that.”

“Just tell me,” sighs Katya. “What do you wish?”

“I wish I was a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room,” I say.

i
go home. The apartment is empty.

I watch TV. I read Kaf ka.

I order dumplings in hot oil and tofu with black bean sauce and eat as I flip through yesterday's newspaper.

I go to sleep.

S
aturday morning, when I wake up, I am not in my bed.

I am not in my body, either.

I am standing, already, though I don't remember getting up, and I'm somewhere sunny.

It seems odd that I'm up before I'm awake, and odd that it's so bright in here, since I normally sleep with the shades down— but I only realize something is radically different when I stretch my arms,

and then my legs

and then my other legs.

Stupid hell, where are these legs coming from?

What, legs, what?

Where did I get extra legs?

They itch. I'll rub them together.

I must be dreaming still.

I wonder if the hot oil from last night is giving me weird dreams. I don't usually eat so much hot oil.

I'll probably wake all the way up in a minute, and stare at my messy room like usual, and pour a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons on TV and think about going running but not go, and try and call Katya and tell her what a strange dream I had.

Extra legs. I'm sure she'll have some Freudian analysis of the dream too. Like I have gherkin envy or something like that. Or I want to run away from something. Or stand up for something.

Whatever. I feel like stretching something else.

Hmm, ahh
,

what is it I want to stretch?

Ah, yes, my wings
,

my wings!

My WINGS.

I stretch them and it feels unbelievably great, these big, powerful, paper-thin wings coming from my shoulders. I have an incredible urge to flap them up and down rapidly. It's almost like they want to move on their own.

But I can't do that. I can't start flapping. It's too freakin' scary. Because this doesn't feel like a dream at all.

It feels absolutely realer than real. Realer than my regular life, even.

I open my eyes. Well, not exactly open them, because I don't have eyelids. It's more like turning them on, so I'm conscious not just of warm bright sunlight, but of the world around me. When I do, images are coming from everywhere, not only in front of me. I can see above, below, to the right, left and back of me—a full surround. But my brain has somehow adapted so that instead of being confused I'm able to look at a hundred different images and follow what's going on in each one.

In front of me is a window with frosted glass. I want to walk up it. The compulsion is strong, so despite my disorientation I get my six legs moving and—like Spider-Man—crawl up the glass to the top of the window.

Crawl up the glass!

When I reach the top, I stop and look around. In front of me is the ceiling, covered with good-smelling gray mildew spots. To my
right, the side of the windowsill. Down to the back, showers and sinks. To my left, the other side of the windowsill and a row of toilet stalls with wooden doors painted a peeling blue. Directly behind me are rows of lockers and wooden benches. The tiles on the floor are dingy.

Where am I?

The room is familiar, and yet unfamiliar. A locker room. But not the one I'm used to. The tiles in the girls' room are white, and the walls are pink—but here are the same ancient, rusty showerheads, same square sinks. But bigger, with blue paint and blue tile.

And there are urinals.

Oh. My. God. I am in the boys' locker room.
The boys' locker room at Ma-Ha.

The girls' locker room is way smaller.

The boys have twelve showerheads and we have only six.

They have full-size lockers, and ours are only half-size.

And they have rows of minilockers, like mesh baskets that slide in and out of a large metal cabinet, with combination locks on them. For stuff they want to leave overnight.

The total unfairness pisses me off so much that for a minute I forget to think about how I've got wings,

and six legs,

and eyes that see out the back of my head.

I forget to wonder how any of this is happening or whether it's a dream.

I stand there on the window, rubbing my little forefeet together and fuming.

Why would theirs be bigger than ours?

We have to practically get dressed in the spray from the showers
,

and shove our clothes into these tiny half-size lockers
,

and why is it only the girls have to lug their gym shoes and shampoo in backpacks, when the boys have all this storage?

And why do they have nice long benches, when we have stubby ones?

And why do they have more showers, when everyone knows girls take longer showers than boys?

Ooh, they have a full-length mirror, too, and an extra tub for dirty towels, when ours is always overflowing.

Hell. I thought sexism was over already. I never thought it would be quietly living on in the architecture of my own school. We've been suffering in that tiny-ass locker room all this time, while the boys are showering in the lap of luxury.

Well, the paint is peeling and it's not exactly clean in here, but it's luxury compared to what the girls get.

Fuck.

Hell.

Every bad word out there.

I'm a fly. What does it matter what the locker rooms are like?

If I don't change back, I've got maybe a few weeks to live, if
nobody swats me and no spider eats me. Pop will return from Hong Kong and I'll be gone without a trace. The apartment will be empty. No one will have seen me for eight days. Pop will call the police to make a missing person's report
,

and Ma will come back and blame him for my disappearance
,

and they'll be miserable and heartbroken and hate each other even more than they already do
,

and all the while they're grieving and carrying on,
and the police are searching for my chopped-up shell of a body somewhere in a dark alley
,

I'll just be buzzing hard up against this single window
unable to talk,
unable to explain,
unable to help or change back
or do
anything
—
stuck in a life even tinier than the one I left.
I might as well be dead.
And I will be soon enough.

I freak the hell out for several hours, just creeping up and down the windowsill with my heart in a knot of anxiety and fear.

But then, I think,

Hey, maybe I should try these wings.

They're here. On my back. I mean, I may be trapped in a nightmare, but I do have wings.

And that should mean I can fly, right?

I stretch them wide, then move them up and down. I bend my knees (all six) and

Flutter, flutter,
Flap
Bzzz bzzz bzzz
up!
UP!
I'm flying! I. Am. FLYING!
Ahhh,
whoa,
can't think and fly at the same time,
okay, don't think, fly,
up up,
now I've got it,
bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—
To the window on the other side!
Over the tops of the lockers!
Swoop down to the benches,
zip up to the lights,
buzz to the right,
to the left,
round in circles,
up,
up,
FLYING.
Wind in my face,
the sound of my own wings beating,
the feel of the air against them as they move,
the floor far below.

It's like riding downhill on a bike—a steep hill, so steep you wonder if it was a good idea to go down it, but you don't brake, you're not careful, you just go. Barely conscious of the houses whipping past you, barely conscious of your balance. All your attention on the pure sensation of movement.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz—
Stop.

Oh my god. I'm a superhero! It's like I've stepped right out of my own tiny life and into the Marvel Universe.

A superhero.

No longer am I Gretchen Yee,
trapped in that tiny life,
weighed down by stuff and divorce and boys and social weirdness and mean drawing teachers.

I am something different.

Something wondrous.

Something out of the ordinary.

Finally. Life is happening to me.

A superhero.

So: what should my name be?

Flyzina. (No. Too dumb.)

The Fly. (No, too literal.)

The Bug. (Too gross.)

Flyette. (Not bad, but too girly-girly.)

Flygirl. (Too obvious and probably too self-congratulatory, given the double meaning.)